Martial Arts Methuselah
by Rosethorn Li
Summary: Yuca and Ryouga, eternal rivals! :Yuca is reborn as Ranma. Unfortunately, this makes a difference.: Saotome Ranma has nightmares every night, has had them ever since he can remember, dreaming of terrifyingly dark expanses closing and unfamiliar voices...


**Martial Arts Methuselah  
**Yuca is reborn as Ranma. Unfortunately, this makes a difference.

Yuca and Ryouga, eternal rivals!!!!

**By: Rosethorn Li**

* * *

There is screaming in the small room, pain and terror rolling in tangible waves of aura from the thrashing form on the bed. A pregnant woman, stomach swollen, back arching off the bed, the child coming too quickly. Her name is Saotome Nodoka, the wife of a martial artist, and there is too much blood.

Her husband watches, listening to her screams. Genma endures, hands clasped tightly behind his back, mouth in a hard line.

There is nothing to be done for his wife, but perhaps the child can be saved.

* * *

Tendo Soun receives a post card two weeks later with the simple inscription in a steady hand:

_My wife has given me a son._

_I will raise him honorably._

_The schools shall be joined._

_

* * *

  
_

Saotome Ranma has nightmares every night, has had them ever since he can remember, dreaming of terrifyingly dark expanses closing in and unfamiliar faces calling his name. Despair overwhelms him when he wakes gasping to a cold night in the wild, the air whistling through their tent and most times covering up the sounds of his wrenching sobs.

His father says, "Men do not cry," and does not look at him.

Ranma learns not to sleep, to avoid the dreams, and uses the nights instead to train.

* * *

"We'll be staying here a while," Genma says when Ranma is thirteen and sufficient in his training. He enrolls his son in a local boy's junior high school, sets up residence in a cheap tenant house, and begins researching the next martial arts style to learn.

Ranma nods and accepts his orders with a dark glance, quiet as ever. There are circles under his eyes and his face is pale, a sickly pallor offset by his black hair, making his eyes look sunken and cheekbones sharp. He is as fit and hale as any martial artist should be.

But his eyes are old.

* * *

Ranma does well in school, acing tests and rising to the top of his class with practiced ease. He's the first in the classroom, the last one to leave, eating lunch alone in the school yard most days, avoiding the friendly, rambunctious boys. Their smiles and niceties make his head hurt with memories just like his dreams, and he can't think straight when that kind of wall closes around his head.

He is alone and fine with this, ignoring the ache in his chest.

Sometimes he see blond hair and a carefree smile from the corner of his eye, hears a distant boy's voice stumbling through words, and if the ache in his chest sharpens it's just his mind playing tricks.

* * *

There's one kid who comes to class only half the time, who the other boys tease as the 'lost boy' because his sense of direction is the worst ever seen. This boy has a temper, and his name is Hibiki-something, Ranma knows from the teacher's warning shouts. Most days find Hibiki crying in the bathroom and cursing the names of his tormentors, loud enough to be heard across town.

Ranma thinks this is none of his business.

Until he bumps into the lost boy, sends him sprawling, and for a moment sees sky blue, deep and guileless and naïve, instead of muddy brown. It takes his breath away and makes his heart ache too-sharp.

Hibiki looks half angry, half scared, ready to shout, his classic reaction to anything done by the other boys.

Ranma helps him up with a charming smile he hasn't used in a while. "My apologize, I didn't see you there. My name is Saotome Ranma."

And Hibiki's mouth drops.

* * *

Ranma calls Hibiki by his first name, Ryouga, and they talk about martial arts and school subjects and anything but their home lives. Ranma offers to take Ryouga to school every morning, help him with the subjects he's missed by wandering the world. Ryouga accepts, gladly, just happy to have found a friend.

The other boys leave Ryouga the lost boy alone.

* * *

Ryouga buys bread every day, competing with his classmates for a piece, and never his favorite kind. But beggars can't be choosers and at least he gets to eat.

Ranma wonders about this. After a while, he asks.

Ryouga says, "Mom isn't home to cook."

Ranma doesn't comment, just nods, and brings an extra lunch the next day.

* * *

Genma tells Ranma seven months after stopping in this town, four after finding a friend in Ryouga, "We'll be leaving for China soon."

Ranma doesn't want to go.

* * *

Seeing Ryouga made his chest ache at first, and Ranma saw someone else in him fleetingly, the ghost of an image. A blond man, blue eyed, laughing and joking with him, goofy and fun and silly in a dorky sort of way, the only true similarity between him and Ryouga the innocence in their eyes.

Ranma can appreciate having a friend, and for the first time in his life feel something beyond honor and discipline (and fear and terror and the world closing in at night).

Comradery was something he thought his father would understand.

Apparently not.

* * *

"You need to be stronger," Genma says to Ranma's veiled pleas to stay.

"I am growing stronger," the boy argues. They kneel facing each other in the small confides of the tenant house room. Tatami is soft beneath his knees, and it reminds Ranma of grass and laughing conversation in the outdoors (of a blond boy and Ryouga, his friends).

"In this place, you will grow faster." Genma's tone has a sense of finality.

Ranma uncharacteristically insists. "I want to stay here."

"You will go to China," his father says, meaning, 'Even if I have to force you.'

Ranma isn't strong enough to defeat his father just yet. He has no leverage in this, honor bound as he is to obey.

* * *

Ryouga challenges him to a match. If he wins, Ranma will stay. If Ranma wins, China it will be.

Ranma doesn't lead him to their meeting spot, guessing Ryouga can find his own backyard.

He waits for three days. On the third, the lost boy still hasn't come, and Genma drags off his silent son.

* * *

Ryouga declared them, "Eternal rivals!" once, a half joking statement at one of their lunches. Become real, now. The boy hated to be disappointed, and without their deciding fight, he most definitely was.

Ranma would apologize, but he's busy swimming across the sea.

* * *

China is large and wild, at least the parts Ranma sees. Primitive peoples, like the Amazons and that one guide and his family at a place called Jusenkyo, populate his route.

Genma is right, he does grow stronger more quickly, most likely because he is constantly running for his life. Several times they were nearly killed in their sleep, or would have been if Ranma had not slept sparingly, if at all.

A constant watch is often good with such clever enemies, and perhaps he should be grateful now that his nightmares prevent rest.

Ranma is not happy, but he continues, existence a thing he his honor bound to keep.

* * *

At Jusenkyo Genma was cursed to take the form of a Panda, Ranma the form of a girl. It doesn't bother him, and he often wonders if it should. The body feels as familiar as his own and he doesn't dwell on it. (His dreams have something to do with it, but just now he's taking it a day at a time and doesn't really care.)

To communicate in his cursed form, Genma wrote on whatever was available, often pieces of bark or leaves. Ranma was greeted with such a sign over breakfast one morning. It read:

_We will return to Japan. You have obligations to complete._

Without caring what his father meant, he nodded his ascent and finished eating.

Ranma's female form held down food much better than his male one did.

* * *

When they return to Japan, Ranma is introduced to the Tendos. "One of Soun's daughters will be your fiancée," Genma explained to his blank faced son.

Akane, the youngest at his own age, glowered at him over the dinner table. Nabiki, a year his elder, sat with a familiar little smile, clearly calculating his worth. Kasumi, the oldest, older than him by three years, smiled at him and offered to refill his drink.

"Pick one."

His father's words.

Staring into the peaceful, calm eyes of the oldest girl, to the challenging fiercely of the youngest, Ranma shrugged. With a polite smile he said, "I will take whomever is willing."

Her sisters shoved the scowling Akane forward and that was that.

* * *

Akane reminds him of someone. He doesn't know who, but he is angry, jealous even of this person who she is from the corner of eye, of this light haired girl in Chinese dress, a Yin-Yang symbol embroidered into the back of her warrior's clothing. Ironic that the symbol of balance upsets his so.

When he sees death carrying a scythe on television that night, he doesn't know why he laughs.

* * *

In order to fit in, Ranma is sent to school again. He introduces himself politely and over the next few weeks works his way to the top of the class. Everyone speaks highly of him.

Akane is upset at his effortless approach in class, at his manners and poise and excellent martial arts. Ranma doesn't know what he's done, has been nothing but nice to her despite his feelings, and begins to get a bit fed up.

A few veiled questions to Nabiki, and trouble at school, with the ignored mob of boys chasing after his fiancée, draws Akane further from him.

* * *

Genma asks his son when he wants to get married. Ranma smiles and says, "When I graduate."

Akane is not consulted.

* * *

Ranma begins acting strange, screaming in the night from his dreams (the memories), laughing at odd things for not apparent reason. Neglecting his training and joining the science club. Going to the library and bringing back thick, heavy volumes he would have previously skimmed instead of devoured.

Reading at the table under his father's disapproving stare.

Soun is concerned, and broaches the subject over a friendly game of shogi.

Genma laughed it off, stealing one of the pieces while his friend is distracted. "The boy has always been strange." That is that.

* * *

Ryouga comes the next week, demanding and ragging and threatening death. Ranma remembers him, of course, through the cloud of returning memories from his previous life (lives). It's fun to bait him, pretending he doesn't know. He ignores the hurt in the lost boy's eyes.

They spar. Ryouga discovers his curse, Ranma finds that he's had a stalker for the past few years and smiles inwardly at that sort of devotion.

What a perfect subject.

* * *

Akane doesn't like the way he treats Ryouga. She's nice to the lost boy, even though he cut her vainly tended hair and dredged up her resemblance, and thus Ranma's dislike, to a whole new level.

Meanwhile, he finally remembers the girl's name.

_Machika_.

He tries it out, tasting that name on his tongue, and smiles cruelly. No one can see, so it doesn't matter if his teeth look sharp as knives or if it appears he's ready for murder.

* * *

The lost boy follows them to the Tendo's home, accepts the dinner invitation from the ever kind Kasumi, and spends the meal making puppy eyes at the youngest daughter. Akane doesn't notice, Nabiki does, and Genma is a panda, just like any customary meal.

But Ryouga, his friend, is in love with his fiancée; Ranma can see it in his eyes.

What a familiar situation.

* * *

Rain. Rainrainrainrainrain. Blond hair in the wind, a violin played so badly the heavens cry. Blue eyes staring accusingly from a pale face, asking _why, why?_ Desperation in those eyes, pain in his chest and an answer on his tongue. Lies coming quick as breathe.

Offered redemption refused.

The end. Pain, a gun shot wound to the head--

He dreams and wakes sweating, gasping for breath, cheeks dry of tears and the lingering voice shouting his name in rage. All _'what if''_s floated through his head and he muffled a giggle into the junction of his elbow. He is a she at the moment and it wouldn't do to wake his father, the lumbering bear beside him.

Not yet dawn, he notes. Gets dressed anyway.

Kasumi is making breakfast in the kitchen, Ranma finds, and offers him tea. He accepts, and watches her bustle about the kitchen, humming to herself with a contented smile on her face.

He tea grows cold in his hand and he watches still.

She is a kind woman, honorable and of the family his father wishes him to join. The dangling strings of half thought out plans begin to tie into place, and his charming smile makes her blush.

"How are you this morning, Kasumi?" Ranma asks in a voice Yuca had perfected over his many entangled lives, and the woman answers him in her gentle, carrying voice.

* * *

It's weeks later that he remembers in full, another week until he refers to himself in his thoughts as 'Yuca' instead of the 'Ranma' it has always been. He changes his engagement to Kasumi, an easily manipulated little doll, a month later, and a half year passes until his subtle plans begin to take effect.

Ryouga always reminded him of Rain. Maybe this time, his Angel will allow the end of the world after all.

* * *

**Word Count: 2240**


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